System and method for populating a cache using behavioral adaptive policies

ABSTRACT

A method, system and program are disclosed for accelerating data storage in a cache appliance cluster that transparently monitors NFS and CIFS traffic between clients and NAS subsystems and caches files using dynamically adjustable cache policies which populate the storage cache using behavioral adaptive policies that are based on analysis of clients-filers transaction patterns and network utilization, thereby improving access time to the data stored on the disk-based NAS filer (group) for predetermined applications.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is directed in general to the field of computerstorage networks. In one aspect, the present invention relates to astandalone cache memory device which is connected between one or morehost machines and a storage device.

2. Description of the Related Art

Data storage technology over the years has evolved from a directattached storage model (DAS) to using remote computer storage models,such as Network Attached Storage (NAS) and a Storage Area Network (SAN).With the direct storage model, the storage is directly attached to theworkstations and application servers, but this creates numerousdifficulties with the administration, backup, compliance and maintenanceof the directly stored data. These difficulties are alleviated at leastin part by separating the application server/workstations from thestorage medium. For example, FIG. 1 depicts a typical NAS system 100 inwhich a number of PCs, workstations and application servers (clients)use a network 10 to access storage resources on a number of remotenetwork attached storage and file servers (or filers). In the depictedsystem 100, each of the networked PC or workstation devices 12-14 andapplication servers 16-18 may act as a storage client that is connectedto the network 10 by the appropriate routers 11 and switches 15 toremotely store and retrieve data with one or more NAS filers 1-6, whichin turn are connected to the network 10 by the appropriate routers 9 andswitches 7-8. Typically, the storage clients (e.g., 14) use an IP-basednetwork protocol, such as CIFS and NFS, to communicate store, retrieveand modify files on an NAS filer (e.g., 5).

Conventional NAS devices are designed with data storage hardwarecomponents (including a plurality of hard disk drives, one or moreprocessors for controlling access to the disk drives, I/O controller andhigh speed cache memory) and operating system and other software thatprovides data storage and access functions. Even with a high speedinternal cache memory, the access response time for NAS devicescontinues to be outpaced by the faster processor speeds in the clientdevices 12-14, 16-18, especially where any one NAS device may beconnected to a plurality of client storage devices. In part, thisperformance problem is caused by the lower cache hit rates that resultfrom a combination of increased disk capacity and high-density mountingon the NAS storage device.

While a number of solutions have been proposed to address theseproblems, they are, for a variety of reasons, not entirely satisfactory.For example, increases in the size and speed of the cache memory resultin increased costs. And while faster disk drives have been developed,the increased disk drive access speeds are not enough to overcome theperformance gap. Other solutions have proposed usingperformance-oriented data placement, but these have provided onlylimited performance gains. Attempts to increase response speed by usingdisk striping across multiple RAID disks have not proven to be scalableor have otherwise suffered from proprietary limitations. And whileparallel file systems with virtualization have been able to provideshort-term performance gains, they are massively complex and difficultto implement. Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method forimproving the disk storage access time to overcome the problems in theart, such as outlined above. Further limitations and disadvantages ofconventional solutions will become apparent to one of skill in the artafter reviewing the remainder of the present application with referenceto the drawings and detailed description which follow.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A high-performance, scalable, stand-alone intelligent cache applianceand methodology are provided for dynamically caching files by monitoringNFS and CIFS traffic between clients and NAS subsystems in response toclients that make read and write requests for these files. Whenpositioned between the storage clients and the NAS filers, theintelligent cache appliance intercepts all requests between the clientsand filers and provides read and write cache acceleration by storing andrecalling frequently used information. By snooping network protocoltraffic state parameters and splicing connections between filers andclients, the intelligent cache appliance provides Open SystemInterconnect (OSI) transparency, thereby performing in the Ethernetnetwork as a bump-in-the-wire. In selected embodiments, a plurality ofintelligent cache appliances may be clustered together to seamlesslyscale the cache capacity by allowing devices to become part of acohesive memory pool without user intervention, either by using adaisy-chain configuration to connect up to three cache appliances or byusing a switched configuration to connect four or more cache appliances.In other embodiments, an initial or default cache population algorithmmay be adaptively adjusted or modified. Such modifications occurautomatically upon discovery of adjacent storage and networkingequipment, learned traffic patterns and/or identified data usage. Inaddition or in the alternative, the modifications to the cachepopulation algorithm can be managed, optimized and automated by the userbased on analysis of transaction patterns between clients and filersand/or based on network utilization.

In accordance with various embodiments, a data operation (such as arequest to read or write a file from a networked storage device) may beadaptively cached or serviced by a non-disruptive storage cache whichuses packet inspection intelligence to splice connections under softwarecontrol using the methodologies and/or apparatuses described herein,which may be implemented in a standalone cache appliance with computerprogram code comprising computer executable instructions. In whateverform implemented, a standalone cache unit receives a request from aremote client to perform a specified data operation at one or morenetworked data storage devices. The standalone cache unit inspectspacket parameters in each TCP/IP stack layer associated with the requestand determines if the request can be serviced by a cache memory locatedat the standalone cache unit. If the request can be serviced by thecache memory, the specified data operation is performed by thestandalone cache unit. In operation, the cache memory is populated witha default cache engine policy which may be modified with auser-specified cache profile for selectively adjusting the default cacheengine policy in accordance with business requirements of the user. Inselected embodiments, the default cache engine policy comprises a leastrecently used with dual time reference algorithm aided with greedy dualsize frequency algorithm, and the user-specified cache profile providespreferential access to the cache memory for files from a user-specifiedapplication data set. In other embodiments, the user-specified cacheprofile provides preferential access to the cache memory for files froma user-specified application data set in accordance with a predeterminedschedule. In yet other embodiments, the user-specified cache profileprovides preferential access to the cache memory for files from a clientlocated at a predetermined IP address. The user-specified cache profilemay also modify the default cache engine policy to provide preferentialaccess to the cache memory for files from a predetermined location in aspecified networked data storage device, or to provide preferentialaccess to the cache memory for a predetermined set of files that areidentified by one or more file path components, such as NAS subsystem,filer, volume, path, directory, name, extension and size. In yet otherembodiments, the user-specified cache profile provides preferentialaccess to the cache memory for one or more specified remote clientsusing one or more predetermined schedules that specify when each remoteclient has preferential access.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Selected embodiments of the present invention may be understood, and itsnumerous objects, features and advantages obtained, when the followingdetailed description is considered in conjunction with the followingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts a typical NAS system in which client devices use anetwork to access storage resources on a number of remote networkattached storage and file servers;

FIG. 2 depicts an enterprise storage network system in which one or moreintelligent cache appliances may be located in front of a file server ora plurality of file servers;

FIG. 3 depicts the functional operation of a non-disruptive storagecache appliance with packet inspection intelligence;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a cache appliance which may be used inconnection with selected embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 5 depicts a first connection configuration for connecting up tothree cache appliances in a daisy-chain topology;

FIG. 6 depicts a second connection configuration for connecting aplurality of cache appliances in a star topology;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a cluster switch which may be used inconnection with selected embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 8 depicts an example process flow sequence for caching storage datausing spliced connections;

FIG. 9 depicts the overall system architecture of a non-disruptivestorage cache appliance cluster;

FIG. 10 depicts an example cache policy configuration window forconfiguring an application profile; and

FIG. 11 illustrates how the control plane and data plane interact toprocess an incoming data request.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A method, system and program are disclosed for accelerating data storageaccess by adaptively caching selected data in a scalable, stand-alonecluster of high-performance memory-based devices that transparentlymonitors NFS and CIFS traffic between clients and NAS subsystems andcaches files using dynamically adjustable cache policies that reflectthe business requirements and/or application workloads that change overtime. In selected embodiments, one or more cache appliances may beconnected or clustered together in front of an NAS filer (group) toprovide low-latency access and redundancy in responding to both read andwrite requests for cached files, thereby improving access time to thedata stored on the disk-based NAS filer (group). When a plurality ofcache appliances are clustered together, the cache capacity may beseamlessly scaled by allowing devices to become part of a cohesivememory pool without user intervention, either by using a daisy-chainconfiguration to connect up to three cache appliances or by using aswitched configuration to connect four or more cache appliances. Byproviding adjustable caching policies, the clustered cache appliancesmay be populated to reflect business requirements, to implement contentmatching algorithms and/or to reflect time-varying file access patterns,network utilization, file sizes and client load. The adjustable cachingpolicies may be defined by the user as application profiles thatidentify application data sets and create policies that automate themanagement of those data sets in order to influence what files are to becached and when. For example, application profiles may be used toidentify a set of files that, when served from the cache appliancecluster, will increase the overall performance of the application byreducing or eliminating I/O bottlenecks. Application profiles may alsobe used to give higher caching priority to selected application datasets that have a positive impact on business, while giving lower cachingpriority to other application data sets. In addition, applicationprofiles may be used to determine schedules for caching data sets frompredetermined applications and/or to identify application clients whoseapplication data sets are to be cached.

Various illustrative embodiments of the present invention will now bedescribed in detail with reference to the accompanying figures. It willbe understood that the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagramsdescribed herein can be implemented in whole or in part by dedicatedhardware circuits, firmware and/or computer program instructions whichare provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions (which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus) implement the functions/acts specified in the flowchartand/or block diagram block or blocks. In addition, while various detailsare set forth in the following description, it will be appreciated thatthe present invention may be practiced without these specific details,and that numerous implementation-specific decisions may be made to theinvention described herein to achieve the device designer's specificgoals, such as compliance with technology or design-related constraints,which will vary from one implementation to another. While such adevelopment effort might be complex and time-consuming, it wouldnevertheless be a routine undertaking for those of ordinary skill in theart having the benefit of this disclosure. For example, selected aspectsare shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order toavoid limiting or obscuring the present invention. In addition, someportions of the detailed descriptions provided herein are presented interms of algorithms or operations on data within a computer memory. Suchdescriptions and representations are used by those skilled in the art todescribe and convey the substance of their work to others skilled in theart. Various illustrative embodiments of the present invention will nowbe described in detail below with reference to the figures.

Referring to FIG. 2, a diagram depicts an example enterprise storagenetwork system 200 in which one or more intelligent cache appliances(e.g., 212, 219) may be located in front of a file server (e.g., 222) ora file server group (e.g., 213-215). The depicted storage network system200 includes one or more storage clients, such as mobile or desktop PCsor workstations 203-205 or application servers 206-208. Each of thestorage clients may run a separate application which requires access toremotely-stored application data. When the application data is stored inone of the NAS filers, the storage client sends a read or write requestover the network 210 using the appropriate routers 201, 211 and/orswitches 202, 216, 224. Such requests may be sent to the destination NASfiler using an appropriate IP-based network protocol, such as CIFS orNFS. However, when an intelligent cache appliance is installed in-linebetween the storage clients and a destination NAS filer, the request toread or write application data may be processed more quickly from thecache appliance's memory than would otherwise occur if the applicationdata were processed from the disk arrays or cache memory in the NASfiler. In this description, a reference to a cache appliance (e.g., 212)may include one or more cache appliances that are connected or clusteredtogether and working in tandem to form a single homogeneous cachingdevice, as described more fully below. In addition, it will beappreciated that each cache appliance may be constructed as a high-speedpacket processor with a substantial cache memory by including a set ofnetwork processing resources (such as a network switch and networkprocessor(s)), a dynamic cache memory, a non-volatile cache memory andcache controller(s).

As indicated in FIG. 2, the intelligent cache appliances may beinstalled in a variety of different locations in the enterprise storagenetwork 200 to provide the adaptive caching benefits to a one or moreNAS filers (as shown by the placement of the cache appliance 219 inrelation to NAS filers 220-222) or to a group of NAS filers (as shown bythe placement of the cache appliance 212 in relation to the switched NASfilers 213-215). However positioned, the cache appliance operates tointercept all requests between the storage clients and the filersfronted by the cache appliance and provide read and write cacheacceleration by storing and recalling frequently used information.Obviously, for this to occur, the cache appliance must be the only paththat is able to reach the filers from the clients, and if any other pathis available, cache coherency problems arise when a piece of informationstored on the cluster is modified through an alternate path.

When provided with packet inspection capability, each cache appliance212, 219 is able to inspect the packet information in each of the TCP/IPstack layers to determine the physical port information for the senderand receiver from the L2 datalink layer, the logical port informationfor the sender and receiver from the L3 network layer, the TCP/UDPprotocol connection information from the L4 transport layer, and theNSF/CIFS storage protocol information from the L5 session layer. Inaddition, the packet inspection capability enables each cache applianceto be spliced seamlessly into the network so that it is transparent tothe L3 and L4 layers and only impacts the storage requests by processingthem for the purposes of accelerating them, i.e., as a bump-in-the-wire.Rather than splicing all of the connection parameters in the L2, L3 andL4 layers, each cache appliance splices only the connection state,source sequence number and destination sequence number in the L4 layer.By leaving unchanged the source and destination MAC addresses in the L2layer, the source and destination IP addresses in the L3 layer and thesource and destination port numbers in the L4 layer, a client perceivesthat it is communicating with the filer, and vice versa, and there is noawareness at either the client or filer of any intervening cacheappliance. With this approach, the spliced connections between clientsand filers are separated to meet the data needs of the client from thecache, while providing periodic updates to meet the connection timeoutprotocol requirements of the filer. In selected embodiments, a read orwrite request is processed at the cache appliance by making only layer 1and layer 2 configuration changes during installation or deployment, andas a result, no filer or client configuration changes are required inorder to take advantage of the cache. With this capability, an installedcache appliance provides a fast and transparent storage caching solutionwhich allows the same connections to be maintained between clients andfilers. And if there is a failure at the cache appliance, the cacheappliance automatically becomes a wire between the client and filer whoare able to communication directly without any reconfiguration.

The functional operation of the packet inspection intelligence in thecache appliance may be described with reference to FIG. 3 which depictsthe functional operation of a non-disruptive storage cache appliance 310that is connected in-line between one or more NAS clients 302 and aswitching router 304 (on the one hand) and one or more NAS filers 308and a switching router 306. When a request to read or write applicationdata is received from a storage client 302, the cache appliance 310 usesdedicated, high-speed packet inspection hardware 312 to inspect thepackets of incoming requests to determine if they should be passedinward for further processing by the cache appliance 310 or forwarded toanother destination, such as a NAS filer 308. For example, if the NASclient 302 requests application data that is stored on the cacheappliance 310, the packet inspection hardware 312 may process therequest by using an upstream traffic table 314 to perform real-time fileallocation base on I/O profiles. If the packet inspection indicates thatthe request is to be processed by the cache appliance 310, the requestis passed internally to the tiered memory cache system 316 whichcontrols the cache storage into tiers. For example, tier 1 storage isreserved for the most critical data (including email, high transactiondatabases, business critical processes and line of businessapplications), while tier 0 storage refers to an in-band,network-resident, policy-driven, high-performance, scalable tier ofmemory subsystems that is used for the storage of business critical dataunder control of a policy engine that is managed independently from theone or more NAS filers. Within the tiered memory, a volatile or dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) 318 provides a file space for cachingapplication data, while a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) 320provides a space for caching pending write operations to NAS filers forthe purpose of maintaining data coherency in a failure event, such asnetwork packets not arriving to their destination. If it is determinedthat the request can not be serviced by the cache appliance 310, theoutput module 322 outputs the client request the disk target in thedestination NAS 308.

In similar fashion, when a response to a request to read or writeapplication data is received from an NAS filer 308, the cache appliance310 uses dedicated, high-speed packet inspection hardware 324 to inspectthe packets of incoming responses to determine if they should be passedinward for further processing by the cache appliance 310 or forwarded toanother destination. For example, if the NAS filer 308 returnsapplication data in response to a read request, the packet inspectionhardware 326 may process the response for possible caching at the cacheappliance 310 by using a downstream traffic table 314 to performreal-time file allocation base on I/O profiles. If the packet inspectionindicates that the request is to be processed by the cache appliance310, the request is passed internally to the tiered memory cache system316 which controls the cache storage into tiers.

As described herein, the cache appliance is the fundamental element ofthe data storage cache system, and is implemented as a combination of ahigh-speed packet processor and a large cache memory. While a variety ofdifferent architectures may be used to implement the cache appliance,FIG. 4 depicts in block diagram form an example hardware implementationof a cache appliance 400 which may be used in connection with selectedembodiments of the present invention to provide network interfaces,packet processing and cache memory. To provide these functions, thecache appliance 400 includes a network switch interconnect component forrouting network traffic, a network processor component for packetprocessing, and a cache controller and cache memory component forstoring cached data files.

The central element of the cache appliance hardware 400 is a high-speednetwork switch 404. The network switch 404 provides client and filerinterfaces, 10 Gbps cluster interfaces, and multiple 10 Gbps connectionsto the packet processing and cache controller hardware. The networkswitch 404 manages data flow between the I/O ports 430, 440 and thepacket processing and cache controller hardware, and may be optimizedfor network traffic where it is desirable to obtain extremely lowlatency. The network switch 404 may be configured to concurrentlyaccommodate a large number of independent accesses that are processed oneach clock cycle, and enables communication data requests from networkprocessor hardware to the cache hardware, as well as data responses fromcache hardware to the network processor hardware. In one embodiment,network switch 404 includes logic (such as multiplexers or a switchfabric, for example) that allows any network processor to access anycache memory, and that conversely allows data to be returned from anycache memory to any network processor. Network switch 404 may alsoinclude logic to queue data requests and/or responses, such thatrequests and responses may not block other activity while waiting forservice, and may be configured to arbitrate cache access conflicts.

The cache appliance hardware 400 also includes one or more networkprocessor units (NPUs) which run the core software on the device toperform node management, cluster communication, packet processing, cachemanagement, and client/filer communication. In a selected embodiment,two NPUs 406, 410 are provided, where each NPU may be implemented as amulti-threaded multi-core processor. To assist with device operation,each NPU 406, 410 controls a durable or non-volatile cache memory 408,412, respectively. With the non-volatile cache memory units 408, 412, avery large amount of durable memory (e.g., 128 Gigabyte) may be providedfor caching device operation software or data, such as with a fieldreplaceable solid state drive (SSD) or hard disk drive (HDD) memory.

Finally, the cache appliance hardware 400 includes a substantial cachememory for storing data files. To control the cache memory, the cacheappliance hardware 400 includes a cache controller for each cachememory. In a selected embodiment, two cache controllers 414, 418 areprovided, respectively for each volatile cache memory 416, 420. With thevolatile cache memory units 416, 420, a substantial amount of dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) (e.g., 64 Gigabyte) may be provided. Eachcache controller 414, 418 is responsible for connecting both the dynamiccache memory and the non-volatile storage to the high-speed interconnectwithin the cache appliance. In addition, the cache controllers 414, 418may offload some cache memory lookup and coherency functions from thenetwork processors 406, 410.

To increase the caching capacity and performance of the data storagecache system, a cache appliance may be connected or clustered with oneor more additional cache appliances on a private network so that theappliances work in tandem to form a single homogeneous caching device.As described above, each cache appliance 400 contains a set of networkprocessing resources, dynamic storage, and non-volatile storage that arecombined as a pool of resources which may be treated as a node on thenetwork. To this end, each cache appliance 400 includes I/O ports 430,440 that allow the cache appliance 400 to be connected to another cacheappliance.

In a first example connection configuration, a plurality of cacheappliances (e.g., up to three appliances) may be physically connected ina point-to-point connection configuration using a pair of high-speedEthernet ports. FIG. 5 depicts an example connection configuration for atwo node cluster 500 in which two cache appliances 501, 502 areconnected in a daisy-chain topology. As illustrated, the first cacheappliance 501 has a first plurality of I/O ports 503 (e.g., two 10GEthernet ports) and a second plurality of I/O ports 505 (e.g., eight 1GEthernet ports). Likewise, the second cache appliance 502 has a firstplurality of I/O ports 504 (e.g., two 10G Ethernet ports) and a secondplurality of I/O ports 506 (e.g., eight 1G Ethernet ports). By directlyconnecting the first plurality of I/O ports, a cluster bus 510 is formedbetween the cache appliances 501, 502. In addition, the second pluralityof I/O ports may be used to connect the cache appliances 501, 502 to thefilers 530 and clients 520. Since the cluster 500 performs as abump-in-the-wire to connect a particular filer 530 to a particularclient 520, the second plurality of I/O ports 505, 506 on each appliancemay be paired together. Thus, the second plurality of I/O ports 505 onthe first appliance 501 includes client I/O ports 505A and correspondingfiler I/O ports 505B. Likewise, the second plurality of I/O ports 506 onthe second appliance 502 includes client I/O ports 506A andcorresponding filer I/O ports 506B. With this arrangement, the cluster500 may be installed in a network by breaking a pre-existing networksegment in two and then connecting one side to the client I/O port(e.g., 505A) in the pair and the other side connected to the filer I/Oport (e.g., 505B) in the pair.

In another example connection configuration depicted in FIG. 6, aplurality of cache appliances 620, 630, 640 may be physically connectedin a star topology configuration using one or more cluster switches 610,650 to form a multi-node cluster 600. As disclosed herein, the clusterswitch 610 manages the connections to the clients 660 and filers 670 andalso provides IPC connectivity between the cache appliances 620, 630,640. By connecting a first cluster switch 610 to I/O ports on each ofthe cache appliances 620, 630, 640, a fully meshed network is formedbetween the cache appliance nodes 620, 630, 640 in the cluster 600. Thecluster switch 610 may be connected to communicate with the clients 660and filers 670 without any hardware limit on the number of cacheappliances that can be connected, so any number of cache appliances canbe connected up to the supported maximum. In the example configurationshown in FIG. 6, the cluster switch 610 at the top of the cluster 600provides paired port connections between the clients 660 and filers 670by including client I/O ports 612 and corresponding filer I/O ports 614.In addition, the cluster switch 610 provides I/O ports 616 (e.g., 10Gports) for connecting with the cache appliances 620, 630, 640 over acluster bus 680. In this configuration, each of the cache appliances620, 630, 640 is connected to the cluster switch 610 via a pair ofpoint-to-point 10G Ethernet connections. These connections form thecluster bus 680 which is used to transport filer and client packets fromthe cluster switch 610 to the cache appliance/nodes, and to transportall intra-node operations and control traffic.

While a variety of different architectures may be used to implement thecluster switch, FIG. 7 depicts in block diagram form an example hardwareimplementation of a cluster switch 700 which may be used to provide thepoint-to-point cluster interconnect between cache appliance nodes inconnection with selected embodiments of the present invention. Insupport of these interconnections, the cluster switch 700 includes aswitch management processing unit or controller 702 and a 10 Gbpsnetwork switch 704. The network switch 704 provides a first plurality ofI/O interfaces 701 (e.g., multiple 1 Gbps interfaces) for client andfiler connections, and also provides a second plurality of interfaces705 (e.g., 10 Gbps interfaces) for cluster connections. The networkswitch 704 may also include a management interface 703. The clusterswitch 700 also includes a switch management processing unit 702 whichprovides in-band switch management for managing the cluster switch 700by serving as a master node in the cluster (e.g., cluster 600 shown inFIG. 6) to control load balancing, port assignment, and write cacheredundancy.

As described thus far with reference to FIG. 6, a single cluster switch610 may be used to connect a plurality of cache appliances into acluster. However, in selected embodiments, an additional cluster switch650 may also be used to cluster the cache appliances 620, 630, 640. Asdepicted, the optional cluster switch 650 at the bottom of the cluster600 provides paired port connections between the clients 660 and filers670 by including client I/O ports 652 and corresponding filer I/O ports654. In addition, the cluster switch 650 provides I/O ports 656 (e.g.,10G ports) for connecting with the cache appliances 620, 630, 640 over acluster bus 690. In this configuration, each of the cache appliances620, 630, 640 is connected to the cluster switch 650 via a pair ofpoint-to-point 10G Ethernet connections. These connections form thecluster bus 690 which is used to transport filer and client packets fromthe cluster switch 650 to the cache appliance/nodes, and to transportall intra-node operations and control traffic. When present, the secondcluster switch 650 provides a redundant set of filer and clientinterfaces for high availability deployments, and also increases theperformance of the entire cluster 600 by doubling the cluster busbandwidth.

Turning now to FIG. 8, there is depicted an example process flow 800 forcaching storage data at a cache appliance using spliced connections. Theprocess starts (step 801), such as when a cache appliance is positionedbetween the storage clients and the NAS filers. In operation, the cacheappliance operates to intercept all requests between the clients andfilers and provide read and write cache acceleration by storing andrecalling frequently used information. After receiving a read requestfrom a client (step 803), the cache appliance (cluster) inspects thepacket information associated with the request (step 805) to obtaininformation for moving the packet through the system (e.g., networkprotocol traffic state parameters). The inspected information is used toidentify packets that need to be processed by the cache appliance, aswell as packets that are to be forwarded by the cache appliance. Bysnooping network protocol traffic state parameters and splicingconnections between filers and clients, the cache appliance providesOpen System Interconnect (OSI) transparency, thereby performing in theEthernet network as a bump-in-the-wire. Based on the inspectedinformation, the cache appliance checks to see if the requested data ispresent within the appliance's cache memory. If so (affirmative outcometo decision 807), this is considered a read cache-hit and the request issatisfied directly from the appliance's cache memory (step 815) beforeor after updating the cache memory pursuant to the cache replacementpolicy (step 813). Otherwise, this is a read cache-miss (negativeoutcome to decision 807) and the cache appliance forwards the readrequest to the filer (step 809). The data returned by the filer may besent to the client and/or cached in one or more cache blocks in thecache memory of the cache appliance (cluster) (step 811) so that theread request can be satisfied from the cache appliance (step 813).Either before or after the read request is returned to the client, thecache appliance (cluster) promotes the cache block based on the cachereplacement algorithm (step 815). Any desired cache population algorithmfor page replacement and cache eviction may be used to populate thecache memory in the cache appliance, including, for example, a leastrecently used (LRU) algorithm (e.g., LRU-K or LRU-2), a least frequentlyused (LFU), a least recently/frequently-used (LFRU) algorithm, anadaptive replacement cache (ARC) algorithm, a multiqueue (MQ)replacement algorithm, the 2Q algorithm which uses two queues toseparate hot and cold items, a low inter-reference recency set (LIRS)algorithm.

To illustrate the constituent component functionality of the clusteredcache appliances connected by a cluster switch, reference is made toFIG. 9 which depicts the overall system architecture of a non-disruptivestorage cache appliance cluster. The depicted architecture is dividedinto four logical components, including the platform component 910, thedistributed adaptive cache component(s) 920, the cluster switchcomponent 930 and the systems management component 940.

The platform component 910 includes the hardware and system softwarecomponents that come together to form the basis of the system. Asdescribed hereinabove, the hardware in the platform component 910includes the individual cache appliance (described above with referenceto FIG. 4) which provides network interfaces, packet processing, andcache memory. In addition, the hardware in the platform component 910includes the cluster switch (described above with reference to FIG. 7)which provides high-speed point-to-point (star-topology) interconnectbetween cluster nodes for load balancing, write cache redundancy, andmanagement. The software in the platform component 910 includes a bootloader component (for bringing the appliance to a minimal operatingstate), an operating system component (to provide for processscheduling, memory allocation, network, and flash file systemfacilities) and drivers (for extending the OS functionality and provideaccess to required hardware).

The distributed adaptive cache 920 distributes the cachingresponsibilities amongst the nodes in the cluster and dynamically adaptsthe caching behavior to its environment via a set of policies. Thedistributed adaptive cache component(s) 920 include the embeddedsoftware that runs on the cache appliances to implement the cachingfunctionality amongst the nodes 901-903 of the cluster. By having eachnode in the cluster hosts a part of a distributed memory cache,servicing of the I/O requests is accelerated. When the distributedadaptive cache component 920 is architected as a shared-nothing system,every piece of file data within the cluster is found in one and only onememory location and the data is in no way replicated in the system. Thedistributed adaptive cache 920 locates its data using a consistent-hashalgorithm which guarantees that the location of the data is unique anddeterministic. The location of a block of data is mathematicallycomputed at a fixed processing cost. The algorithm also makes thecluster minimally susceptible to cluster changes such as the addition orfailure of a node, since only a part of the distributed adaptive cacheis affected by a change in the cluster's configuration. The algorithm issaid to be self-organizing in that the I/O load is seamlesslyredistributed amongst the nodes after a change in the cluster topology.

As illustrated, the distributed adaptive cache component software 920includes a data plane section 924 which performs the required packetprocessing functions on a packet so that each packet can progressthrough the cluster 900. In other words, if something must be performedto progress a packet through the system, then it is a data planeactivity. The data plane 924 processes received client and filer trafficthrough a pipeline of operations. At any point during the processing,the data plane 924 may forward a packet out from the distributedadaptive cache component 920 because it is finished servicing theoperation, or the packet is not pertinent to the system, or for otherreasons. The data plane 924 may also use a cluster interface to forwardthe packet to another node in the cluster 900.

The distributed adaptive cache component software 920 also includes acontrol plane section 922 which performs the required processingfunctions about a packet to facilitate the data plane or that is notrequired in order to process a packet. In other words, the control planesection 922 stores control information that affects the data plane 924.If any stimulus outside of a packet traversing the system requires anoperation, then it is a control plane activity. The control plane 922 iscomposed of stand-alone data structures as well as a set of managersthat themselves may contain their own data structures. The interactionbetween the control plane 922 and the data plane 924 is via theinterface 923 which can be take several forms, such as function calls,IPC requests, or direct access into a data structure's memory. Aspackets progress through the system, the data plane 924 queries thecontrol plane 922 to help it perform its operations. The data plane 924conversely sends information to the control plane 922 that it may eitherneed in subsequent operations or that provide information to themanagement functions of the system. In addition, the distributedadaptive cache component software 920 includes a management planesection 929 which performs various ancillary functions on the systemthat do not affect the processing of packets or that is on demand fromthe remote management server 940.

The cluster switch component 930 includes the hardware and software thatmanages the connections to the clients 960 and filers 970, as well asproviding IPC connectivity between the cache appliances 901-903. Asillustrated above in FIG. 7, the cluster switch component 930 providesthe point-to-point cluster interconnect between cache appliance nodes901-903, provides one or more 10 Gbps interfaces for clusterconnections, and provides one or more multiple 1 Gbps interfaces forclient and filer connections, as well as an optional managementinterface.

Finally, the systems management component 940 is the software running ona remote management server that facilitates all fault, configuration,accounting, performance, and system tasks performed on the cluster. Thesystems management component 940 enables a user to define, configureand/or modify a cache policy for the cluster 900 to accelerate theperformance of a cluster 900. In addition, the systems managementcomponent 940 enables the user to define a policy to accelerate theperformance of particular line of business applications orbusiness-critical processes. The configuration that specifies how tocache a particular application is the application cache profile. Anapplication cache profile identifies the filesystem resources that areused by a particular business application, and also contains a prioritythat is intended as a hint for what should be evicted. The priority foran application is used to indicate that files of a lower priorityapplication should be evicted in favor of caching higher priorityapplication objects. The profile may also contain frequency cachinghints, such as cache files that are accessed some number of times over agiven period of time.

Application profiles can be applied to all clusters, some of theclusters, or specifically to a single cluster. Each application profileis defined as a set of expressions called policy statements. Each policystatement includes or excludes a set of filesystem resources from theapplication profile. The filesystem resources are specified using aresource path that consists of the following components: protocol, fileraddress, volume name, and path to a filesystem resource. The policystatement can be further qualified using file size, operation type, andfrequency of access.

Once the application cache profiles have been defined, they can bescheduled with the systems management component 940 to specify thewindow of time where the application's policy statements will be valid.If an application is not scheduled, it is considered disabled. If two ormore applications overlap, a priority can be assigned to control whichapplication takes precedence.

In operation, the data plane 924 includes a packet filter engine 925that inspects received packets to identify the packets that need to beprocessed by the cluster 900, and forwards all other packets to an exitinterface 950, 955. This action minimizes the impact of non-relevantpackets on system resources. There are two types of packets that must beidentified for further processing: cluster IPC packets and client/filerpackets. Cluster IPC packets are identified based on L2 headers andknowledge of how such packets are formatted (e.g., custom Ethernettypes). Client/filer packets are identified based on L2-L4 headers andqueries to the port map manager which contains information about theUDP/TCP ports being used by the filers to provide storage services (NFS,CIFS, etc.). The information gleaned from L2-L4 parsing is saved in thepacket context to avoid having to parse these headers again in othercomponents.

The data plane 924 also includes a flow engine 926 to process TCPconnections and UDP conversations by providing a place to store flowcontext and to implement split TCP connections and flow serialization,where a flow refers to a sequence of TCP or UDP packets having with thesame 5-tuple. The flow engine provides a mechanism for other modules tostore flow-specific data for later retrieval. For example, the NFSmodule may store data related to an NFS request to match with an ensuingNFS reply. Another primary example is TCP connection state for trackingsequence numbers, retransmits, etc. As from implementing split TCPconnections, this occurs when the cluster 900 becomes aman-in-the-middle on a connection when a request (e.g., an NFS read) isintercepted and served from local cache. The flow manager implements thelogic needed to be a man-in-the-middle on a split connection.

A file engine 927 in the data plane 924 handles layer 5-7 NFS, mount,CIFS, HTTP, FTP, and port mapper transactions that are used to performprotocol decode, file lookup, and transaction processing operations. Inaddition, the file engine 927 may be used to implement the adaptivecache policy by handling storage-related packets that the cache policyidentifies as being not cacheable, as well as cacheable storage-relatedpackets that are not a read/write request/reply. In protocol decodeoperations, the protocol messages are delineated and decoded based on aprotocol content type that is determined by the flow engine. Afterdecode, a file lookup operation is performed using a reverse lookup ofthe internal file record based on filer and a protocol-specific filereference. This provides the file-specific information needed to processthe message (e.g., internal file handle, cache policy, etc). Intransaction processing operations, the requests are tracked andcorrelated with corresponding responses as part of a transaction pairbetween a client request and filer response, and based on thetransaction type, the completed transaction pairs are routed to theappropriate component for further processing. For example, clientrequests for cacheable objects are intercepted and passed to theappropriate component (data requests to the cache engine), and all theinformation necessary to complete the transaction is passed on (packet,packet context, file record, request, etc.).

Finally, the data plane 924 includes a cache engine 928 that providesfault-tolerant block-level file caching. In addition, the cache engine928 may be used to implement the adaptive cache policy by handlingcacheable storage-related packets that are a read/write request/reply.File requests are translated into distributed cache block accesses. Acache block is a unit of memory that is dedicated to storing file data.The blocks reside within the distributed memory that is implemented ontop of the cluster of nodes 901-903. Even though NAS protocols arefile-based, cache management may be simplified by superimposing a blockapproach. The cache engine 928 hides the distributed nature of thecache, providing file-based I/O to the control plane 922.

By clustering cache appliances together, the size of the cache memoryfor a filer system may be scaled and data content may be distributedacross multiple cache appliances without user intervention or serviceinterruption. In addition, the packet inspection capability enablesconnection splicing so that the cache appliance (cluster) can beinserted between filers and filer's clients or users without having tochange mount points and network addresses, implementation data migrationand network topology. In particular, the cache appliance may beinstalled in the physical path (along with one more network switches) bymomentarily interrupting the logical network connection between filersand its clients. Once the cache appliance (cluster) is installed, itcommences operation by identifying active network connections travelingalong the physical path between the filers and filer's client(s). Bytransparently inserting the cache appliance cluster between filers andfiler's clients using spliced connections, the size of the storage cachemay be scaled by distributing data content across multiple cacheappliances without user intervention or service interruption, andwithout having to change mount points and network addresses,implementation data migration and network topology.

As described herein, the caching policies will control what data isstored on the cache appliance cluster, and thereby obtainhigh-performance storage benefits. To the extent that the cacheappliance cluster is a precious, finite resource, the cache policiescontrol how the resource is used and who has access to it. In selectedembodiments, an initial or default cache population algorithm may beadaptively adjusted or modified based on policies generated based on theanalysis of behavioral use and network adaptation. Such modificationsoccur automatically upon discovery of adjacent storage and networkingequipment, learned traffic patterns and/or identified data usage. Inaddition or in the alternative, the modifications to the cachepopulation algorithm can be managed, optimized and automated by the userbased on analysis of transaction patterns between clients and filersand/or based on network utilization.

The use of adaptive cache policies to modify or adjust the cachingbehavior of the cache appliance cluster can be especially helpful whenthe data storage needs vary based on application needs and/orchronological considerations. For example, some client applicationswhich use the filer storage are more important to business success thanothers, such as when some clients and users generate more revenue thanother clients. To support the important clients, the cache appliancecluster may be configured to identify the important clients based on theextracted packet information, and provide preferential cache access tothe important clients. In addition, application workloads may vary overtime, such as when the activity for some applications peaks at differenttimes of the day or different days of the week, or when distinctivefiles in the application's data set may be hot at different times. Basedon the detected or known behavioral patterns, the caching policy of thecache appliance cluster may be adjusted to enable users to differentiateeach of these scenarios and automate the management of the cachingresources. Thus, the cache policy may provide that cache access prioritychanges over time, so that the applications from a first client at afirst predetermined time period will have cache access priority, whilethe applications from a second client at a second predetermined timeperiod will have cache access priority. As will be appreciated, thecache policy may be adjusted to select cacheable information using avariety of techniques, such as pattern searches and content matching.

To understand how an adaptive cache policy may be used to selectivelypopulate the cache appliance cluster with data files, a description isnow provided with reference to an example cache appliance cluster whichis configured or programmed with a default page replacement algorithmand an adaptive cache policy. The adaptive cache policy effectivelycomplements the default page replacement algorithm to specify whichapplications are to be given priority access for storage on the cacheappliance cluster by applying one or more prioritization rules. Inoperation, the cache appliance cluster may view every storage operationas an opportunity to cache, and may apply the default page replacementalgorithm to cache the most frequently used pages. In selectedembodiments where the default caching scheme is implemented as a LeastRecently Used with Dual Time reference (LRU-2) algorithm eviction policyaided with Greedy Dual Size Frequency (GDSF) algorithm, storage accessis accelerated across the board because the cache engine performscontinuous LRU-2 analysis for page replacement and cache eviction.

The ability to modify or adapt the default page replacement/cacheeviction algorithm is provided with user-defined cache policies whichcontrol or influence how a cache appliance cluster caches an applicationdata set, which is the set of data files that an application reads orwrites. When there are clients accessing an application's data set thatare not serving the application's business interests (such as clientsperforming archiving or file search operations), it may be advantageousto exclude such clients from accessing the cache appliance cluster. Tothis end, an application may be defined as a related or identified groupof clients that access a particular data set. At any given time, thereis a working set of pages from the application data set that are beingread or written, where a page is a logical block of file data that maybe cached. Finally, the application's critical working set refers to theset of pages that is frequently being read or written by an application.To the extent that I/O bottlenecks are created when an application iswaiting to complete reads and writes on the critical working set, accessto the critical working set can be accelerated by caching theapplication's critical working set in the cache appliance cluster. Whiletraditional cache page replacement algorithms are designed to serve themost active pages from cache, they are not sufficient to ensureeffective use of the cache if the total application working sets aremuch larger than memory and application storage access patterns varyrandomly. Another drawback with traditional page replacement algorithmsis that they do not take into account the business interests of the datastorage network. Accordingly, selected embodiments of the presentinvention use adaptive caching policies to complement page replacementalgorithms by identifying which application data sets are to be storedin the cache appliance cluster, such as by selecting application datasets that are most important to the business, or by selectingapplication data sets on the basis of when they should be cached. Withan adaptive cache policy, cache resources may be intelligently managedand optimized by placing data files into the cache memory based onbusiness needs so that critical applications that are important tobusiness success are given preferential cache access, even though otherfiles may have been accessed more recently, more often, or used by moreclients.

In accordance with selected embodiments of the present invention, anadaptive cache policy is implemented when a user (such as a systemsexpert) identifies an application data set and/or critical working set,and then creates one or more policies to automate the cache managementof those data sets in order to control or influence what files arecached and/or when caching occurs. An adaptive cache policy may beexpressed as an application profile which allows a user to identifiedthe application's critical working set in terms of a set of files that,when served from cache, will increase the overall performance of theapplication by reducing or eliminating I/O bottlenecks. The identifiedfiles may be described with reference to the file path components, suchas NAS subsystem, filer, volume, path, directory, name, extension andsize. Any of the components may be wild-carded using simple globingsyntax.

The application profile may also prioritize each application accordingto its business importance. As a result, application data sets withhigher priority are given preference compared to lower priorityapplication data sets.

In yet another feature, each application profile may define a schedulefor when an application's critical working set is to be cached. Forexample, if a particular client performs payload computations on aparticular time or on a particular schedule, the application profilewill specify that the client is to be given preferential cache access atthat time or schedule.

In yet another embodiment, the application profile may be used toidentify specific clients who are to be given preferential cache access.For example, the profile may identify priority application clients bytheir IP address so that, when a priority client requests files from anassociated data set, they are to be considered for caching. Conversely,when a non-priority application client requests the same resources, thatrequest is served by the filer if it is not in cache.

The application profile may also be used to specify whether write-backor write-through caching is enabled for the application. In write-backmode, asynchronous write requests are logged to local stable storage(e.g., non-volatile cache memory) in the cache appliance cluster, and aresponse is sent to the client before the data in the cache appliancecluster is copied to the filer. In write-through mode, write requestsare synchronous and a response is not sent until the filer hasacknowledged the write.

As will be appreciated, the application profile for an application maydefine an adaptive cache policy using one or more of the above-describedprioritization rules, and may be enabled or disabled separately fromother application profiles. For example, FIG. 10 depicts an examplecache policy configuration window that would be used by a user (e.g.,system administrator or expert) to configure an application profiledefined as Video Production (shown in the applications section 1002). Inthe configured profile shown in window 1000, the application detailssection 1004 shows that the cache appliance cluster is instructed tocache all read operations and perform write-back caching on all filesthat are less than 10 MB in size and have the suffix .sl, .tif, and .ribin the render directory of a specified NFS server and volume, and onlycache those files when accessed by hosts on the 10.2.0.0 network. Thispolicy would be in effect all of the time.

As indicated above, cache policies may be adaptively applied in time sothat a cache preference is restricted to a particular period of time.For example, if a payroll application runs on Thursday evenings, theprofile for that application could have an associated schedule which isused to instruct the cache appliance cluster to cache the payrollapplication's working set when its application clients access it, butonly during the scheduled times when those clients are expected to beprocessing payroll.

To demonstrate the operation of the distributed adaptive cache in acache appliance cluster, reference is now made to FIG. 11 whichillustrates how the control plane 1110 and data plane 1120 in adistributed adaptive cache 1104 interact to process read and writerequests in incoming packets in accordance with selected embodiments ofthe present invention. As explained more fully below, the data plane1120 takes in client and filer traffic via the ingress interface 1102and progresses it through a pipeline of one or more operations performedby the engines 1121-1124 in the data plane 1120 which interact with themanagers 1111-1118 in the control plane 1110. At any point during theprocessing, the data plane 1120 may forward a packet out through theegress interface 1108 because it is finished servicing the operation, orthe packet is not pertinent to the system, or for other reasons. Thedata plane 1120 may also use the cluster interface 1106 to forward thepacket to another node in the cluster.

When a client/filer packet is first received by the distributed adaptivecache 1104 at the ingress 1102, the packet is forwarded to the filterengine 1121 over the interface 1125. The filter engine 1121 parses andextracts the L2-L4 fields in the packet to compute a packet context. Thefilter engine 1121 also verifies the packet by computing the IP checksumso that any invalid packet can be dropped. If the received packet is nota TCP/IP or UDP/IP packet, the filter engine 1121 forwards the packetover the interface 1140 to the egress 1108. However, if a TCP/IP orUDP/IP packet is received, the filter engine 1121 obtains the sourceinterface for the packet from the local interface (LIF) manager 1115which uses a set of physical interfaces belonging to a logical interfaceto perform link aggregation, port bonding and fail-over, therebyinsulating other parts of the system from these L2 details. The LIFmanager 1115 provides APIs for the management plane to create andconfigure logical interfaces, and also provides APIs for the data planeto determine which logical interface a particular packet arrived on. Thefilter engine 1121 then uses the source interface to pass the packet andcontext over the interface 1126 to the flow engine 1122.

At the flow engine 1122, any IP fragment packets are queued until thelast fragment is received. The flow engine 1122 also verifies the packetby computing the TCP or UDP checksums so that any invalid packet can bedropped. The flow engine 1122 also looks up the TCP/UDP port in the portmap manager 1111 which contains information about the UDP/TCP portsbeing used by the filers to provide storage services, such as bymaintaining a table that maps IP addresses and a UDP/TCP port numbers toa service such as NFS, MOUNT and HTTP. If the received packet is not aTCP/UDP port is not for storage service, the flow engine 1122 forwardsthe packet over the interface 1140 to the egress 1108. However, if theTCP/UDP port is for storage service, the flow engine 1122 uses thepacket 5-tuple to look up the flow record from the flow manager 1112which stores a flow table indexed by 5-tuples that allows clients tostore and retrieve flow-specific data. The flow manager 1112 may alsoprovide a flow balancing service (to spread flows across the cluster'sprocessing elements) and flow serialization (to ensure that each flow ishandled by a single processing element). If the flow for the receivedpacket belongs to another node in the cluster, then the flow engine 1122forwards the packet and context to the flow engine on that node via theinterface 1131 and cluster interface 1106. The flow engine 1122 alsore-sequences any out-of-order packets, updates sequence numbers andstores the updated sequence number in the context before passing thepacket and context over the interface 1127 to the file engine 1123.

At the file engine 1123, upstream packets (e.g., from client to filer)are parsed to extract the L5-L7 fields from the packet and store them inthe context. If the file engine 1123 determines that an incomplete L7packet is received, the packet is sent to a reassembly queue. If thereceived packet is a storage control plane (mount, portmap, etc.), thefile engine 1123 forwards the packet and context to the file manager1118 which maintains file meta-data—such as a name space tree (similarto a dentry tree), individual file records (analogous to inodes), andreverse lookup tables—and correlates file references to ensure cachecoherency. Any response packets detected at the file engine 1123 may bedropped, and any read or write requests are stored in the transactionmanager 1117 where they are correlated with filer responses for purposesof populating the cache when a read miss occurs (by generating a filerrequest/reply), cleaning a dirty cache block when a outstanding writeacknowledgment comes back from the filer and updating internal filerecords when file management requests are answered by the filer. Bycalculating an internal file handle (IFH), the file engine 1123 canretrieve a file record from the file manager 1118. The file engine 1123also checks to see if the read or write request is allowed by queryingthe policy manager 1116 which provides a unified interface for queryingcache policies and resolving conflicts between multiple policies. If thepacket contains a file management request, the file engine 1123constructs an answer from any available file record information andforwards the answer over the interface 1140 to the egress 1108. Filemanagement requests that cannot be answered from the file record areforwarded over the interface 1140 to the egress 1108. Finally, if thepacket contains a read or write request, the file engine 1123 forwardsthe request to the cache engine 1124.

Downstream packets (e.g., from filer to the client) are processeddifferently by the file engine 1123, though some of the processing isthe same. First, the downstream packets are parsed to extract the L5-L7fields which are stored in the context. Incomplete L7 packets are sentto a reassembly queue. If the received packet is a storage control plane(mount, portmap, etc.), the file engine 1123 forwards the packet andcontext to the file manager 1118. Any request packets from the filerdetected at the file engine 1123 may be dropped, and the transactionmanager 1117 may be used to look up a corresponding request. If acorresponding request is found, the file engine 1123 updates the packetcontext, but otherwise drops the packet. If the packet contains a filemanagement reply from the filer, the file engine 1123 updates the filerecord in the file manager 1118. However, if the packet contains aread/write reply from the filer, the packet is forwarded to the cacheengine 1124. Any other packets are forwarded over the interface 1140 tothe egress 1108.

A packet that makes it to the cache engine 1124 is a read/write requestfrom a client or a read/write response from a filer. For any readrequest received from a client, the cache engine 1124 receives thepacket and context over the interface 1128. Using the internal filehandle, offset and length contained in context, the cache engine 1124determines the list of data blocks for the read request. The cacheengine 1124 then queries the cache manager 1114 to determine if therequested data is located within the cluster's cache. Each instance ofthe cache manager 1114 is responsible for receiving and processing cacherequests (converted from NAS file requests) for locally cached data. Thecache manager 1114 organizes the RAM—assigned to the data cache—into acollection of data blocks of equal size that are used to store andmanage file data. In addition to storing data in cache blocks, the cachemanager 1114 may also recycle cache blocks using the LRU-2 algorithmwhenever its data cache is over-committed (i.e., the cache is 100% fullwhen a cache-miss occurs). Upon receiving a read request, the cachemanager 1114 checks to see if the requested data is present within thecache. If so, this is considered a read cache-hit, and the cache engine1124 then fetches the data blocks from the cache memory platform.Otherwise, this is a read cache-miss, and the cache manager 1114 sends aread request back to the cache engine 1124 so that it can be forwardedto the filer. The returned data is cached in one or more cache blocks,and the read request is then satisfied from the cache. Finally, thecache block is promoted based on the LRU-2 algorithm. In forwarding arequest to the filer, the cache manager 1114 may modify it so that thereturned data (from the filer) fills an entire cache block. Finally, thecache engine 1124 formulates one or more response packets to the readrequest, and sends the requested read data in a response to the client.However, if a client's request is for data that is not in the cacheappliance cluster 1100 (a read miss), the cache engine 1124 sends arequest to the filer for any missing data blocks, and then awaits aresponse from the filer. As indicated above, this response from thefiler is received from the file engine 1123, and includes a context fromwhich the cache engine 1124 determines the list of data blocks. Thisinformation is used by the cache engine 1124 to store the missing datablocks in the cache, and to formulate one or more response packets thatare send to the client.

For a write request from a client to write data to the cache appliancecluster 1100, the cache engine 1124 receives the packet and context fromthe file engine 1123 over the interface 1128. Using the internal filehandle, offset and length contained in context, the cache engine 1124determines the list of data blocks for the write request, and thenstores the data blocks to the cache memory platform, at which point theyare marked as “dirty.” The cache engine 1124 then commits a writerequest to the cache manager 1124 which includes a journal which is afault-tolerant transaction log of the application's write operationsthat is used exclusively for failure recovery. The cache manager 1124uses the journal to record write requests in a persistent-store. Thestore behaves as a transaction log where write requests are began,canceled, and completed. The transactions are stored in a fault-tolerantway such that it requires the failure of three nodes before the data islost. Upon receiving a write request, the cache manager 1124 checks tosee if the requested data is present within the cache. If so, then thecache manager 1124 updates the local cache block with the new data. Thecache block is also promoted. Next, the data is submitted to the journalso that it can be written to the cluster. Finally, the request isacknowledged as having been completed. Once the requested writeoperation is completed, the cache engine 1124 formulates and sends oneor more response packets to the client, and then sends write requestsfor the dirty blocks to filer in order to initiate flushing of dirtycache blocks.

When a filer responds to a write request with a write reply, the cacheengine 1124 receives the packet and context from the file engine 1123over the interface 1128. Using the internal file handle, offset andlength contained in context, the cache engine 1124 determines the listof data blocks for the write reply, marks the cached data blocks as“clean” and commits a write request to the journal in the cache manager1124.

To coordinate and manage the individual cache appliance nodes within thecluster 1100, the control plane includes a cluster manager 1113 which isresponsible for managing node membership and fail-over processing in thecluster 1100. Node membership management involves detecting and handlingthe movement of nodes in and out of the cluster 1100, and also respondsto individual node failures. The cluster manager 1113 notifiesregistered clients of cluster membership events (e.g., by providing anotification whenever the cluster has been reconfigured). In addition,the cluster manager 1113 provides query services to specify the identityof the cluster, the cluster count, and the ID of each member of thecluster. The cluster manager 1113 may also be responsible for mapping ofthe data within the distributed adaptive cache to specify on which nodea particular cache block resides. In other words, it provides a locationservice for the data.

By now it should be appreciated that there has been provided a methodand system for adaptively caching data operations in a standalone cacheunit that are requested from one or more networked data storage devicesby one or more remote clients. As disclosed, the standalone cache unitincludes a cache memory for caching data that is requested by a remoteclient. In addition, the standalone cache unit also includes a packetprocessor for transparently splicing connections between the datastorage devices and remote clients, where the packet processor inspectsnetwork protocol traffic state parameters in NFS and CIFS trafficbetween remote clients and NAS subsystems received on the I/O ports todetermine if a request from a remote client can be serviced by thestandalone cache unit. The standalone unit also includes an adaptivecache control module to control caching operations in the cache memoryby using a default cache engine policy (e.g., an LRU-2 algorithm aidedwith GDSF algorithm) and a user-specified cache profile to selectivelyadjust the default cache engine policy in accordance with businessrequirements of the user. In selected embodiments, the businessrequirements require preferential cache access for files from auser-specified application data set; or for files from a user-specifiedapplication data set in accordance with a predetermined schedule; or forfiles from a client located at a predetermined IP address; or for filesfrom a predetermined location in a specified networked data storagedevice; or for a predetermined set of files that are identified by oneor more file path components, such as NAS subsystem, filer, volume,path, directory, name, extension and size. In selected embodiments, thestandalone cache unit may be implemented as a single cache appliance, oras a cluster of two or more cache appliances for caching dataoperations. In the cluster configuration, an appliance cache memory isincluded at each cache appliance for caching data that is requested by aremote client. In addition, an appliance packet processor is alsoincluded at each cache appliance for transparently splicing connectionsbetween the data storage devices and remote clients, where the appliancepacket processor inspects network protocol traffic state parametersreceived on the I/O ports to determine if a request from a remote clientcan be serviced by the cluster. Finally, a connection interface isincluded at each appliance for connecting cache appliances over acluster bus in a private network to form a cohesive memory pool from theappliance cache memories in the two or more cache appliances.

In another form, there is provided a method and system for adaptivelycaching storage requests in a cache appliance cluster using behavioraladaptive policies. As disclosed, a network cache appliance is providedfor accelerating read and write requests from one or more storageclients for one or more files residing at one or more networked storagedevices. The network cache appliance includes a tiered memory cachesystem for adaptively caching data to provide low-latency access inresponding to read and write requests using dynamically adjustable cachepolicies that reflect the data caching requirements that change overtime. In selected embodiments, the tiered memory cache system isimplemented as a dynamic and non-volatile cache memory for providinglow-latency access in responding to read and write requests, and anadaptive cache controller for controlling caching operations in thecache memory which uses a default cache engine policy and auser-specified cache profile for selectively adjusting the default cacheengine policy in accordance with business requirements of the user. Thenetwork cache appliance also includes a packet inspection module fortransparently inspecting a read or write request sent using an IP-basednetwork protocol to determine if the request should be passed to thetiered memory cache system or forwarded to a networked storage devicefor further processing. In selected embodiments, the user-specifiedcache profile provides preferential access to the cache memory for filesfrom a user-specified application data set in accordance with apredetermined schedule, though other criteria may be used to determinepreferential access to the cache memory.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present inventionmay be embodied in whole or in part as a method, system, or computerprogram product. For example, a computer-usable medium embodyingcomputer program code may be used, where the computer program codecomprises computer executable instructions configured to providenon-disruptive, adaptive storage caching using clustered cacheappliances with packet inspection intelligence. Accordingly, the presentinvention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, anentirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software,micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardwareaspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,”“module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present invention may take theform of a computer program product on a computer-usable storage mediumhaving computer-usable program code embodied in the medium.

The foregoing description has been presented for the purposes ofillustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modificationsand variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It isintended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detaileddescription, but rather by the claims appended hereto. The abovespecification and example implementations provide a complete descriptionof the manufacture and use of the composition of the invention. Sincemany embodiments of the invention can be made without departing from thespirit and scope of the invention, the invention resides in the claimshereinafter appended.

What is claimed is:
 1. A standalone cache unit comprising: one or moreinput or output (I/O) ports; a cache memory to store data at thestandalone cache unit; a packet processor, at the standalone cache unit,coupled to the cache memory and to the one or more I/O ports, the packetprocessor to inspect network protocol traffic state parametersassociated with a data operation request received from a remote clientover one or more networks and received on the I/O ports in order todetermine whether the request can be serviced by the standalone cacheunit based on the inspected network protocol traffic state parameters;and an adaptive cache control module, at the standalone cache unit, toexecute computer-executable instructions in order to perform a dataoperation corresponding to the request and to automatically controlcaching operations in the cache memory using (i) a default cachereplacement policy, and (ii) a user-specified cache profile thatselectively adjusts the default cache replacement policy based on one ormore conditions associated with the request.
 2. The standalone cacheunit of claim 1, where the user-specified cache profile providespreferential access to the cache memory for files from a firstuser-specified application data set as compared to a seconduser-specified application data set.
 3. The standalone cache unit ofclaim 1, where the user-specified cache profile provides preferentialaccess to the cache memory for files from a user-specified applicationdata set in accordance with a predetermined schedule so that thepreferential access is restricted to a particular period of time.
 4. Thestandalone cache unit of claim 1, where the user-specified cache profileprovides preferential access to the cache memory for files from a firstclient located at a predetermined Internet Protocol (IP) address ascompared to a second client located at a different IP address.
 5. Thestandalone cache unit of claim 1, where the user-specified cache profileprovides preferential access to the cache memory for files from apredetermined location in a specified networked data storage device ascompared to files from another location.
 6. The standalone cache unit ofclaim 1, where the user-specified cache profile provides preferentialaccess to the cache memory for a set of files having a predeterminedfile path component, the file path component including one or more of aNetwork Attached Storage (NAS) subsystem, filer, volume, path,directory, name, extension, or size.
 7. The standalone cache unit ofclaim 1, where the default cache replacement policy comprises a leastrecently used with dual time reference algorithm aided with greedy dualsize frequency algorithm.
 8. The standalone cache unit of claim 1, wherethe packet processor executes software that transparently monitors oneor more of Network File System (NFS) or Common Internet File System(CIFS) traffic between one or more remote clients and one or more NASsubsystems.
 9. A method for adaptively caching data operations, themethod being performed by a standalone cache unit and comprising:receiving, at the standalone cache unit, a request from a remote clientto perform a specified data operation at one or more networked datastorage devices; inspecting packet parameters in each TCP/IP stack layerassociated with the request to determine whether the request can beserviced by a cache memory located at the standalone cache unit; inresponse to determining that the request can be serviced by thestandalone cache unit, performing the specified data operation at thecache memory; and automatically controlling caching operations in thecache memory using (i) a default cache replacement policy, and (ii) auser-specified cache profile that selectively adjusts the default cachereplacement policy based on one or more conditions associated with therequest.
 10. The method of claim 9, where the user-specified cacheprofile provides preferential access to the cache memory for files froma first user-specified application data set as compared to a seconduser-specified application data set.
 11. The method of claim 9, wherethe user-specified cache profile provides preferential access to thecache memory for files from a user-specified application data set inaccordance with a predetermined schedule so that the preferential accessis restricted to a particular period of time.
 12. The method of claim 9,where the user-specified cache profile provides preferential access tothe cache memory for files from a first client located at apredetermined Internet Protocol (IP) address as compared to a secondclient located at a different IP address.
 13. The method of claim 9,where the user-specified cache profile provides preferential access tothe cache memory for files from a predetermined location in a specifiednetworked data storage device as compared to files from anotherlocation.
 14. The method of claim 9, where the user-specified cacheprofile provides preferential access to the cache memory for a set offiles having a predetermined file path component, as the file pathcomponent including one or more of a Network Attached Storage (NAS)subsystem, filer, volume, path, directory, name, extension, or size. 15.The method of claim 9, where the user-specified cache profile providespreferential access to the cache memory for one or more specified remoteclients based on one or more predetermined schedules that specify wheneach remote client has preferential access.
 16. The method of claim 9,where the default cache replacement policy comprises a least recentlyused with dual time reference algorithm aided with greedy dual sizefrequency algorithm.
 17. A non-transitory computer-readable mediumstoring instructions that, when executed by a processor of a standalonecache unit, causes the processor to perform operations comprising:receiving, at the standalone cache unit, a request from a remote clientto perform a specified data operation at one or more networked datastorage devices, the one or more networked data storage devices being incommunication with the standalone cache unit over one or more networks;determining whether the request can be serviced by a cache memorylocated at the standalone cache unit based on one or more parametersassociated with the request; in response to determining that the requestcan be serviced by the standalone cache unit, performing the specifieddata operation at the cache memory; and automatically controllingcaching operations in the cache memory using (i) a default cachereplacement policy, and (ii) a user-specified cache profile thatselectively adjusts the default cache replacement policy based on one ormore conditions associated with the request.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 17, where the user-specified cacheprofile provides preferential access to the cache memory for files froma user-specified application data set in accordance with a predeterminedschedule so that the preferential access is restricted to a particularperiod of time.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim17, where the user-specified cache profile provides preferential accessto the cache memory for files from a first client located at apredetermined Internet Protocol (IP) address as compared to a secondclient located at a different IP address.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 17, where the user-specified cacheprofile provides preferential access to the cache memory for files froma predetermined location in a specified networked data storage device ascompared to files from another location.